Well there's Delius's On The First Cuckoo In Spring...

It's been mooted that the opening motif of Beethoven's fifth symphony was not a "fate motif" at all but was inspired by the chattering call of the yellowhammer. We have yellowhammers round here ("little bit of bread and no cheese") and I can well believe it. Interestingly, and something I read about at least forty years ago, that motif is almost always played wrong by orchestras (blame the conductor). The symphony actually opens with a rest. Look at the score. If you don't "hear" that rest, the conductor has got it wrong! Without it, the symphony's opening gambit never sounds right to my ears!